One of the more fun things about following la Chenoweth is seeing the creative responses writers have to seeing her in performance. Take, for example, Newsday:
Joyful neurosis, with an acute dose of cute
Joyful neurosis, with an acute dose of cute
BY JUSTIN DAVIDSONNewsday Staff Writer
January 22, 2007
It's hard work to be adorable, but Kristin Chenoweth's labors of lovability bore fruit at her Metropolitan Opera concert Friday night in what can only be described as a leaping ovation. Her fans came primed, and she did not disappoint them. She sang well, of course, but her gymnastic and pliant voice is actually not her secret.No, that would be the slightly desperate assertiveness of her opening number, "Gorgeous," from her current Bock & Harnick Broadway vehicle, "The Apple Tree," followed by Stephen Schwartz's "Popular." All performers live by the motto "Look at Me," but Chenoweth craves love more obviously than most. To get it she has refined her brand of rodeo cutesiness - by turns raunchy, girly, soulful and angelic - and finished it with a coat of good New York neurosis.
Chenoweth is a tiny Roman candle with a blinding grin, a rubber-ball soprano and a personality big enough to dominate the Met's majestic house. She arrived full of wonder at her own talent, her good fortune and the sheer oh-my-golly-gee-whizness of a girl like her ending up in a place like this. But while she milked the persona of a trailer-park pixie, she strode the stage like the bona fide diva she is, hurling high-voltage top notes that nearly fried the amplification. Ah, the amplification: Chenoweth knows how to romance a microphone, but it's an alien presence at the Met, and it blurred her high-definition patter in "If You Hadn't But You Did" into a rat-tat-tat of phonemes. Maybe now that the company is so attuned to technology and media, it will find a way of making these once-a-year amplified concerts sound good. Chenoweth was at her best in recent music, such as "The Girl in 14G," by Jeanine Tesori, which updates the classic New York vignette: girl off the bus, still smelling of hay, who finds an apartment and seeks salvation in showbiz. In the song, her quiet nest turns out to be sandwiched between the Wagnerian soprano downstairs and the Ella-wannabe upstairs; her only option is to best them both with a bit of Broadway belting. Chenoweth tossed off that assortment of styles like a tennis ball serving machine. At her perkiest, she hopped so enthusiastically that she threatened to do a double Janet Jackson out of her shoulderless gown. But the evening's real thrill was the emotional nakedness she allowed herself for a stretch of the second act. "Love Somebody Now," by her rock-solid music director Andrew Lippa, is a tender anthem of the lonely. "How Can I Lose You?" by Adam Guettel is a deeper, more bitter description of love killed by too much need. Having established her sincerity credentials, Chenoweth then slid down a ravine into a bog of sentimentality, culminating with the Styx song "Show Me the Way," complete with chorus and churchy crescendos. She redeemed herself with encores, starting with Leonard Bernstein's "Glitter and Be Gay," which in her case seemed less like a song title than the first injunction in a 12-step program for stars.
January 22, 2007
It's hard work to be adorable, but Kristin Chenoweth's labors of lovability bore fruit at her Metropolitan Opera concert Friday night in what can only be described as a leaping ovation. Her fans came primed, and she did not disappoint them. She sang well, of course, but her gymnastic and pliant voice is actually not her secret.No, that would be the slightly desperate assertiveness of her opening number, "Gorgeous," from her current Bock & Harnick Broadway vehicle, "The Apple Tree," followed by Stephen Schwartz's "Popular." All performers live by the motto "Look at Me," but Chenoweth craves love more obviously than most. To get it she has refined her brand of rodeo cutesiness - by turns raunchy, girly, soulful and angelic - and finished it with a coat of good New York neurosis.
Chenoweth is a tiny Roman candle with a blinding grin, a rubber-ball soprano and a personality big enough to dominate the Met's majestic house. She arrived full of wonder at her own talent, her good fortune and the sheer oh-my-golly-gee-whizness of a girl like her ending up in a place like this. But while she milked the persona of a trailer-park pixie, she strode the stage like the bona fide diva she is, hurling high-voltage top notes that nearly fried the amplification. Ah, the amplification: Chenoweth knows how to romance a microphone, but it's an alien presence at the Met, and it blurred her high-definition patter in "If You Hadn't But You Did" into a rat-tat-tat of phonemes. Maybe now that the company is so attuned to technology and media, it will find a way of making these once-a-year amplified concerts sound good. Chenoweth was at her best in recent music, such as "The Girl in 14G," by Jeanine Tesori, which updates the classic New York vignette: girl off the bus, still smelling of hay, who finds an apartment and seeks salvation in showbiz. In the song, her quiet nest turns out to be sandwiched between the Wagnerian soprano downstairs and the Ella-wannabe upstairs; her only option is to best them both with a bit of Broadway belting. Chenoweth tossed off that assortment of styles like a tennis ball serving machine. At her perkiest, she hopped so enthusiastically that she threatened to do a double Janet Jackson out of her shoulderless gown. But the evening's real thrill was the emotional nakedness she allowed herself for a stretch of the second act. "Love Somebody Now," by her rock-solid music director Andrew Lippa, is a tender anthem of the lonely. "How Can I Lose You?" by Adam Guettel is a deeper, more bitter description of love killed by too much need. Having established her sincerity credentials, Chenoweth then slid down a ravine into a bog of sentimentality, culminating with the Styx song "Show Me the Way," complete with chorus and churchy crescendos. She redeemed herself with encores, starting with Leonard Bernstein's "Glitter and Be Gay," which in her case seemed less like a song title than the first injunction in a 12-step program for stars.
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